Any question answered...

Is that you, Donald?

Already here and on my second mix of mortar....

Relevant XKCD?

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No slacking here, battered through it so they have.

Thank you for your support, I shall wear it always.

Not finding much direct comparisons in a quick search, anyone here have opinions/facts about the environmental impact of titanium vs aluminum mining and processing? Basically I'm just trying to decide between an anodized alu kettle and and a titanium one. I know the right answer is steel, but humour me.

The contribution of mining enough metal to make a kettle to environmental degradation pales into insignificance next to the destruction wrought by your selfish insistence on having hot drinks

Granted hydro power displaces people and destroys large swaths of forested land thereby releasing mercury and other toxins, but it's not as bad as coal or nuclear.
So you don't have an answer?
:)

So you don't have an answer?

My answer is that the difference is too small to matter. In straight energy to refine from ore terms, Ti takes nearly three times as much as Al per unit mass of metal, and the Al one probably uses less mass too, but that's still less than 100kWh difference per kettle, equivalent to about 2000 hot drinks

Thanks tester.

Have you figured in the difference in thermal conductivity between Al and Ti?
I’m guessing, based on carrying my Ti bike and my sons Al one on cold days, that an Aluminium kettles are more efficient.

Is there such thing as a decent electric lawnmower or are they all plastic crap these days? I’m thinking I’d like something where you can actually replace things like the motor, brushes, belts, bearings etc. I’ve managed to replace a belt on our Qualcast in the past, but now the motor has partially consumed itself and I can’t get replacement brushes or a motor.

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I bought an Austrian scythe last year.

I’ve often wondered what the energy savings would be if people brewed their tea at, say 92 or 95c instead of a rolling boil.

Someone I spoke to recently drew parallels between Western consumerism and responses to trauma. No matter how evident it is that we’re being self-destructive, we simply refuse to change because of reasons we can’t fully comprehend (on a societal level; there are exemplary eco-conscious individuals here and out there).

/tangent

Have you figured in the difference in thermal conductivity between Al and Ti?

What's the mechanism for that being relevant? The metal case is very thin, so the heat transfer from inside to outside will be dominated by shape (for conduction) and colour (for radiation). To the extent that it's relevant, Al (even alloy) is a far better heat conductor than Ti, which is probably going to make it less efficient dues to wastage to the surroundings.

often wondered what the energy savings would be if people brewed their tea at, say 92 or 95c instead of a rolling boil

There are two parts; just heating water from 92 to 100 costs about 9Wh per litre. Vaporising it is energetically costly, but not much is vaporised. Losing 0.01l as steam (that's a lot) would cost another 6Wh. Out of the 100Wh/l you're using to make tea either way, it's a material number but not earth shattering. All this assumes 100% efficiency, so the absolute number will be higher but the proportion is largely unchanged.

The importance of this depends entirely on what the rest of the building is up to - if it's being heated, all of the input into the kettle ends up as reduction in required heating input so it doesn't matter

Look at companies that supply carbon brushes, these people https://www.mrcarbonbrush.com/ have made me carbon brushes for old wolf (made in North London wolf) tools

I’ve often wondered what the energy savings would be if people brewed their tea at, say 92 or 95c instead of a rolling boil.

Shit tea though,

Have added them to my bookmarks for later, thanks for the handy link.

Not worth it on this mower because list of reasons:

1. It’s an £80 POS held together with self-tappers. They’re Phillips ones as well, who the fuck does that in 2021?
   
2. This is my second time opening it up in 4 months.
   
3. The motor commutator has corresponding damage so there’s no guarantee it’ll work. From past experience I’m fairly confident it’s too damaged.
   

PPq

They’re Phillips ones as well, who the fuck does that in 2021?

Anybody who wants something to go together once and cheaply, without caring whether it ever comes apart. Phillips heads are used when you want to use cam-out as the tightening torque limiter on the factory floor instead of costly clutched drivers

So the driver spins when the screw is 'tight enough'?

In proper factories, the driver has a torque-limiting clutch and a slip detector, so it turns off once it starts slipping. In back street metal bashing shops, the driver is forced out of the fastener head at approximately the desired torque because the flank contact of a Phillips recess has a slope which is always tending to push it out. If the operator is a gorilla, they will just ignore this and keep spinning the tool, rounding off all the corners and making it impossible to reuse the fastener.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_out

Aw yeah.

often wondered what the energy savings would be if people brewed their tea at, say 92 or 95c instead of a rolling boil

There are two parts; just heating water from 92 to 100 costs about 9Wh per litre. Vaporising it is energetically costly, but not much is vaporised. Losing 0.01l as steam (that's a lot) would cost another 6Wh. Out of the 100Wh/l you're using to make tea either way, it's a material number but not earth shattering.

Thanks. I was thinking that scaled to a population level, it would probably add up to a good amount of energy saved for a relatively minor cost if people brewed tea at =<99deg instead of boiling.

Shit tea though,

Most fast food tea isn’t great anyway, and I’d be surprised if even the most carefully reared Golf Club palate can feel the difference between 96 and 99deg builders tea.